Five years ago, Federica Bertocchini was cleaning out her beehives at home in Santander in Northern Spain, including sweeping out wax worms — common pests that eat into honeycombs.

Shortly after, the biologist at the Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología de Cantabria noticed that holes were forming in the plastic bags where she had put the squirmy little critters.

In that incident, Bertocchini had unintentionally come upon a discovery that could someday address one of the greatest dilemmas of modern living.

"We have found that the larva of a common insect, Galleria mellonella, is able to biodegrade one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics: polyethylene," said Bertocchini, who published her research on April 24 in Current Biology with co-authors Paolo Bombelli and Chris Howe of Cambridge University.

Notably, advancing other recent research that found that some bacteria can break down plastic bottles and meal worms can consume Styrofoam, wax worms can eat plastic bags quickly, the researchers found. Very quickly.

Whereas mealworms eat Styrofoam at a rate of 0.13 milligrams per square centimeter per hour, the wax worms degrade plastic bags at 0.23 milligrams at the same rate, said Bertocchini.

“If you put the worm into the plastic bag, in 20 minutes it comes out,” said Bertocchini. “The timing is just so fast.”

Wax worms eat beeswax, which like plastic is a polymer — a material composed of many bonded substances. Honeycombs and plastic have similar chemical makeups, too. So it makes sense they would feed on plastic, she added.

Interestingly, the worms produce ethylene glycol as a byproduct when they eat plastic. That’s a primary component of polyester fabrics and antifreeze.

Bertocchini admitted more work was to be done.

They are not sure if the worms produce chemicals in their salivary glands that break down polyethylene or if bacteria in their guts might be doing the work for them. They also aren’t sure of the potential downsides (or industrial uses) of the excess ethylene glycol.

Scientists also needed to do more research to make sure bacteria, mealworms and waxworms weren’t still passing out infinitesimal plastic particles that researchers hadn’t found on first blush, Mincer added. Those tiny particles could cause other unforeseen problems.

But waiting until the world recycles plastic properly shouldn't delay research into how to degrade the excess stuff that’s hanging in tree branches and floating in the waves now, Bertocchini countered.

She envisioned a molecule plucked from a wax worm degrading plastic in a network of clean tech facilities around the world.

“Getting rid of plastic in our landfill sites; a plastic free ocean,” she mused. “It would be utopia.”